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The Great Cull

I'm not quite sure where is the best place to put things forward for the new council to mull over, but I've given a quick go at outlining a possible (very simplistic) approach to removing some inactive members from the outfit.

Option 1: All players who have not logged in over a year and new member status
Outcome: 451 members removed

Option 2: All players who have not logged in over 6 months and new member status
Outcome: 872 members removed

This definitely wouldn't remove all the players who in fact have decided to pack in the game, only joined for a day, or play but not with squads, but as an initial approach I think it does a good job to declutter whilst retaining key members from the olden days. You can see a full list of who would be removed, as well as its influence on stats here

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it." - The Conclave

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it." - The Conclave

(I think) Nick suggested that if people are <BR10 and haven't been around for a 6 months then they have missed at least a call to arms and clearly aren't playing with us regularly. Go for it Longnecks!

Edit to point out I only think this was Nick, so he doesn't get unfairly tared if it wasn't!

At the outfit meeting yesterday we decided to postpone any culling until we know how the promised in-game outfit ranking and recruitment will work. It might be beneficial to remove inactive members or it might be beneficial to have many members. We do not know any of this yet.

Suggestions are nevertheless appreciated and the Sexiest Giraffe Herder Council (official name not yet decided?) will undoubtedly look at these and put forward a proposal for a culling when and if the time is right.

Additionally, it was agreed in the meeting prior to wednesdays meeting that it would be a good idea to give people fair warning if/when any cull takes place, and let people know who will be affected, so that they might say "please dont get rid of me".

Its at least fair to give people a chance beforehand.

Also, if it happens, doing it in stages would be a better method as I suggested before.. i.e. cull all rank 1 members first time round, etc etc.

I'm still not clear what cullling inactives gains us, other than giving somebody a hole pile of work to do now, and a reasonable amount of work to do every month or so. And it is a lot of work - I don't think you can ever see the last login time in game, so you have to look them up.

What Nick suggested was that we instead cull people who don't actually ever play as part of the outfit. Here there is a clear advantage - the numbers that Outfitpoints etc give us will reflect what we actually have on hand (ish, some people obviously lone wolf as well as squad play) and we don't have to worry about [RPS] people getting us a reputation for being dicks. It's also even harder to figure out who to keep and who to kick, and I don't trust Nick's "you just know" method.

Yeah and (what I also mentioned at the meeting) was: are we happy to be keeping someone who played only ever plays ins CtAs and then doesn't play planetside at all, but then will kick someone who played with us at a CtA but doesn't play with us regularly (if at all) during normal play.

I'm not enamoured with the thought of folk running around in the game without us knowing whether they're not being excellent or not, but it just struck me as weird that we'd be kicking someone who actually plays the game and not kicking someone who doesn't, you know?

Also, as totally-self-appointed welcome channel spokesperson , unless you're coming up with some actually workable way of running a CtA that doesn't involve invites, I request no deletions unless they haven't been on in more than a year.

Posted something along similar lines before LaKroy came and cleared things up a bit. There are issues, but they aren't to do with large amounts of inactives, afaik. Until we have a good reason to remove large amounts of inactives it seems kind of moot.

And the issue of people possibly misrepresenting RPS is a separate one. Personally I would prefer to see all sorts of players welcome in the outfit, even if they spend all their time solo. Unless they break the golden rule and aren't excellent. But then it's perhaps more an issue of how do we keep ourselves open to the rare report of rogue RPSers not being excellent?

I'm still not clear what cullling inactives gains us, other than giving somebody a hole pile of work to do now, and a reasonable amount of work to do every month or so. And it is a lot of work - I don't think you can ever see the last login time in game, so you have to look them up.

Personally, i speculate that not doing so would continue to deteriorate our Outfit stats, as it already does. Which in turn will effect our reputation in the eyes of everyone else, which also in turn will effect our recruitment drive demographic and Outfit life span/popularity.

This

Originally Posted by iNGLE5

Option 1: All players who have not logged in over a year and new member status
Outcome: 451 members removed

would be my initial proposed action in the context of removing inactives.

Speculation aside, nobody is clear on what removing inactives would gain us. This is why =

Originally Posted by LaKroy

we have decided to postpone any culling until we know how the promised in-game outfit ranking and recruitment will work. It might be beneficial to remove inactive members or it might be beneficial to have many members. We do not know any of this yet.

Originally Posted by CMaster

What Nick suggested was that we instead cull people who don't actually ever play as part of the outfit.

Actually, no. Perhaps on my part i wasn't very clear here. I never said or meant "Instead of". This other point i raised was just one to consider, or an "as well or including these people" kind of thing, in my opinion at least. As mentioned before, it depends on how it actually effects things after the Outfit update.

Originally Posted by CMaster

we don't have to worry about [RPS] people getting us a reputation for being dicks.

Personally, i disagree with that. It is my opinion that we most certainly do have to hold ourselves responsible for behaving to our own standards. This means accountability, which in turn means there needs to be some kind of communication throughout the Outfit, or at least contact with our members. This would normally be through Mumble or the Forums, but; those names in the Outfit that you never see on Mumble or the forums that regularly play the game, we simply have no way of advising, reminding or reprimanding them of behavior in-game.

I'm not wanting to make out this a big thing, because it isn't, but i'm just saying its a valid point that is worth considering when you look at it in the context of our reputation within the Miller community.

Originally Posted by CMaster

It's also even harder to figure out who to keep and who to kick, and I don't trust Nick's "you just know" method.

True. So that proposed method is basically just based upon knowing and recognising who regularly plays and who those people are. There are those who could confidently distinguish between the two types, but you clearly aren't one of them. Fair point though.

Personally, i speculate that not doing so would continue to deteriorate our Outfit stats, as it already does. Which in turn will effect our reputation in the eyes of everyone else, which also in turn will effect our recruitment drive demographic and Outfit life span/popularity.

Eh, Recruitment is mostly via Rock Paper Shotgun, or through reputation for being commited but not MLG. As said, our numbers have remained stable for ~ 1 year now, while plenty of other groups have risen and fallen. You're going to have to kick a lot of actives if you want to make us look impressive statistically.

Originally Posted by NickWhite

Personally, i disagree with that. It is my opinion that we most certainly do have to hold ourselves responsible for behaving to our own standards. This means accountability, which in turn means there needs to be some kind of communication throughout the Outfit, or at least contact with our members. This would normally be through Mumble or the Forums, but; those names in the Outfit that you never see on Mumble or the forums that regularly play the game, we simply have no way of advising, reminding or reprimanding them of behavior in-game.

Obviously wasn't clear here. I mean to say that we would be kicking the unengaged so that we didn't have to worry about that sort of thing, not that we can magically not worry about it now. (I've mentioned before being curious about the number of banned RPS members, because I can only imagine there must be some[/quote]

Originally Posted by NickWhite

True. So that proposed method is basically just based upon knowing and recognising who regularly plays and who those people are. There are those who could confidently distinguish between the two types, but you clearly aren't one of them. Fair point though.

I can't imagine there is anybody who plays reguarly at all times of day and night to really know that. And remember the ~200 strange internet names you'd need to know. If you wanted to do it, I'd suggest a google form that everybody has to complete to stay in the outfit, and push it as hard as you could in all appropriate channels (mumble, mumble comments, forums, etc - obv not Outfit chat.).

Edit: Scrap all times of day and night - looks like there's pretty much nobody between 02:00 and 08:00.

I can't imagine there is anybody who plays reguarly at all times of day and night to really know that. And remember the ~200 strange internet names you'd need to know. If you wanted to do it, I'd suggest a google form that everybody has to complete to stay in the outfit, and push it as hard as you could in all appropriate channels (mumble, mumble comments, forums, etc - obv not Outfit chat.).

An idea someone brought up and that was expanded upon last sunday was to have the council sit down and go through all members and pick out names that none of us recognized for kicking (with the seven of us, we should have run into the vast majority of players who have played with us more than just once).

Then, we put the list of these players who are "candidates for getting kicked" here on the forums and ask everyone (both on the forums and on mumble) to check the list and make sure that they are not on it. Anyone who finds his or her name on the list can just post "I want to stay, please don't kick me oh beautiful and awesome giraffes", and their name is removed from this prospective kick list.

After a period of say two weeks we remove everyone who is still on the list.

This way, we give everyone ample opportunity to make sure they don't get kicked if for some reason the council doesn't recognize their name despite them playing with the outfit. In addition, we might encourage some more people to check the forum a bit (which is always a good thing). It's a bit admin intensive, but also very fair and it gives people a lot of opportunities and time to make sure nothing goes wrong.

I also want to add that I personally (i.e. me as a player and not me as a council member) feel that it might be a good idea to kick players who never ever play with us. They are only part of the outfit in name only, and I do think they have an effect on our reputation. If they, for example, are players who only play with the zerg and people time after time see the [RPS] tag when people are just zerging it will further increase our reputation as a zerg-fit/unorganized/whatever (and yes, at least some people seem to think we are just a zerg-fit). For me, playing with the outfit at least once in a while (even if it's just once every other month or whatever) doesn't seem like an unreasonable minimal demand of our members.

Problem is that there is still a chance that people would slip through the net.

I do think some form of cull is a good idea, I just dont think that leaving it down to a select few to determine who plays with us based on memory is the right way of dealing with it.

I would suggest that, if we cull at all, we cull the list of BR 1 new members only. Thats about 270 people that would be culled, which would probably boost our stats anyway, if people are bothered with that stuff.

If thats not enough for people, consider going up to BR 5.... But then we run the risk of people who only started recently getting turfed out.

In any case, we should post a list and provide time for people to say no.

If you still want to run with sir hocs system, which is fair, just massively time intensive...

This would take a lot of time. The list of names is massive, and so going through the whole lot is impractical. It needs to be narrowed down and made an easier task. 7 people sitting down and assessing a list of 1000 names and checking with each other if they have played recently is just plain silly.

I suggest you adjust the method to only take into account people who havent played within x months, then there is no risk of removing people who dont look farmiliar, but joined when you guys werent looking. :P